


torn by the bitterest remorse

by velvetvelour



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Drabble Collection, F/M, Kinda, M/M, Multi, One-Sided Attraction, Pining, Reader-Insert, Slow Burn, and vincent appreciating that and showing it through. protectiveness probably?, but full disclosure: almost none of this has been written preemptively, cause its vincent, gender neutral reader, he's too Trauma and Guilt to reciprocate romantic interest or attraction, hovering nearby, i dont actually intend to write anything related to dirge of cerberus, i just tagged it since its the vincent game LOL, reader into him in a way that becomes more and more clear, so kind of stuff like, thats what i intend as a dynamic, to be clear
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-14 18:08:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29175444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/velvetvelour/pseuds/velvetvelour
Summary: It’s been about two hours since you insisted on following the note’s strange clues throughout the manor, and after battling slew after unending slew of the strange and plentiful creatures haunting the halls, you can understand how this whole ordeal might be starting to feel like more trouble than it’s worth. But, hell, how can you stop now when you’re already 3 for 4?
Relationships: Vincent Valentine/Reader, Vincent Valentine/You
Comments: 8
Kudos: 20





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ok. to be honest. this was entirely inspired by me playing ff7 and taking. literally over an hour to solve the little safe puzzle to unlock vincent because for some reason it never occurred to me just. press the down button again on the note. and i refused to look up the solution. btw, when i finally did unlock it the boss killed the whole party almost instantly. so. yeah. thats vaguely my concept, minus the killing. and we'll see where it goes from there. 
> 
> i kinda want this to be short little chapters--i expect this one to be one of the longest given that it consists entirely of the introduction + events directly leading to vincent joining the party. 
> 
> if anyone is slightly disappointed to see yet another new fic rather than an update for one of my preexisting ones... oops! me too! in all honesty, I wrote this all (+ a little bit more) in one obsessive sitting without so much as a bathroom break, and, who knows, i might not write another word for 6 months! we'll all just have to see how it goes, i guess.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A treasure hunt with an unusual reward.

“You know, we’ve got a hell of a lot bigger things to worry about than a dusty old safe.”

The monumental roll of your eyes syncs up perfectly with the last word of his sentence as you tear your focus away from the cryptic note in your hands. It must be the fifth irritably impatient comment that Cloud has thrown your way since you spotted it in an oddly untouched corner near the manor’s entrance, and you’re lucky you’ve got your back to him, cause you otherwise might’ve earned yourself a quick sixth. Though, it’s not like you can blame him too much.

It’s been about two hours since you insisted on following the note’s strange clues throughout the manor, and after battling slew after unending slew of the strange and plentiful creatures haunting the halls, you can understand how this whole ordeal might be starting to feel like more trouble than it’s worth. But, hell, how can you stop now when you’re already 3 for 4? Your eyes pore over the messy script once more.

_ I must get rid of all those who stand in the way of my research. Even that one from the Turks. I scientifically altered him and put him to sleep in the basement. If you want to find him, search the area.  _

_ Move the dial on the safe carefully but quickly. You have 20 seconds. The four hints for the numbers are… _

__ _ The lid of the box with the most oxygen. _

__ _ Behind the ivories, short of tea and ray. _

__ _ The creak in the floor near the chair on the second floor… Five steps to the left, nine up, two to the left, and up six more. _

You click your tongue. That’s all fine and dandy, but the glaring issue of an utter lack of a  _ fourth  _ hint is what has thrown a wrench in what should’ve been a quick and easy operation, for you especially. Locks are kind of your specialty, after all. The insurmountable annoyance of finding a safe you  _ can’t  _ crack on your own is probably at least half of your driving motivation for solving this damn puzzle. 

“Yeah, well, for all we know, that ‘dusty old safe’ might just hold a secret weapon indispensable to stopping Sephiroth,” you retort stubbornly after a moment. “Or a lot of cash. Whatever it is, it’s gotta be important if someone went to this much trouble to keep it locked away.”

Or ‘whoever’ it is, you add mentally. It does say ‘he’ pretty clearly, but, well, you think a ‘he’ would have a pretty hard time squeezing himself into a safe that size, so if anything, that makes it  _ less  _ clear just what’s in store behind that stubborn dial. Whatever it is, you’ve honestly just been hoping that you find it sitting on top of a pile of gil. Shinra are nothing if not loaded; who’s to say you’re not on the cusp of discovering the hidden rainy day fund of a former Shinra researcher or engineer?

“That won’t matter if the horde of monsters in this place does us in before we even have a chance to find him,” Cloud snaps back, and you just sigh.

You really can’t blame him. Between the unending waves of monsters, an oddly uncharred Nibelheim filled with unknown inhabitants and moaning black-cloaked figures, and the ever-haunting threat of Sephiroth, it makes sense for Cloud to be so visibly on edge--or in other words, noticeably more of an asshole than usual. Speaking of which, you look over to Tifa, who only glances between the two of you with resignation, seemingly seeing the merit in both sides, though without it in her to pick one over the other.

“Then, hey, why don’t you two head back to the inn and rest for a while?” you suggest distractedly, turning back around to face Cloud, though your eyes are once again glued to the old piece of paper (searching for anything, fucking  _ anything  _ that might give even the slightest hint towards that final number). “I’ll catch up with you as soon as I get the safe open.” 

“Don’t be stupid,” comes his instantaneous response. Yeah, didn’t really think he’d go for that one. Even if you’re safe for now, holed up in the upstairs bedroom with the door closed tight for a moment of respite, you’ll probably get attacked again within minutes of leaving the room.

“There’s gotta be  _ something,” _ you groan in complaint, now scanning the blank underside of the page for probably the twentieth time. “We can’t just be expected to guess the last number when there’s a hundred possibilities.” 

The first one was easy; the number ‘36’ carved onto the lid of a chest in the manor’s mini greenhouse. The second one took a little longer, but still wasn’t much effort--’10’ scrawled on the floor behind the grand piano. Even the third clue was pretty simple to follow once you examined the floorboards around every chair on the second floor. So, why the hell would whoever drafted this silly little game make the fourth number so impossible to figure out?

You’ve already scanned the entire expanse of the first floor, searching desperately for a second note, or perhaps a clue somewhere near where you found the first one, and triple checked the locations of each of the clues for some indication of where the missing fourth number could be found, all to no avail. As much as you hate to say it, you don’t even know what to do at this point. Maybe you should take a fifth shot at cracking it on your own. 

“...I think we should go back to the inn,” Tifa pipes in eventually, hugging her arms around herself and tapping the toe of her boot on the hardwood floor. “We can come back tomorrow, try one more time. Maybe we’ll be able to figure it out with refreshed minds.”

She says that, but you really doubt that sleeping in this town could leave her or Cloud anything close to refreshed. 

“There’s nowhere else it could be,” you mutter, frowning very deeply to yourself, and, regrettably, ignoring Tifa’s comment altogether. There’s no way you’ll be able to sleep until you figure this out. “We’ve looked everywhere. It’s gotta be hidden on this page somewhere. Maybe there’s some kind of code, or…” 

Wait… Hidden on the page… 

_ Wait! _

Your eyes blow open wide and you suck in a gasp of realization.

“...What is it?” Cloud asks with uncertainty and a heavily furrowed brow.

“Cloud!” you nearly shout, and his face twitches. You shove the paper in his direction. “Hold this out in front of you, please.”

“Did you figure it out?” Tifa asks beside you, a tinge of hope to her tired voice.

“Think so. Hope so.” You wiggle the paper in your grasp. “Cloud, please.”

With a huff, he accepts the paper and holds it out at arms length, flopping over itself.

“No, no, hold it out so I can see the words,” you correct, waiting until he fixes his error and stepping back a pace or two. “Okay, now don’t move.”

“What are you gonna do?” he asks, and his voice is a little quieter now, losing the edge from before, though replacing it with a hint of concern.

“Ideally  _ not  _ singe your eyebrows off. Please hold still.” 

Before he can protest, you hold your hands out and incite a familiar warmth inside of you, tapping into it only slightly until you form a ball of flame, not much bigger than the materia that allows you to wield it in the first place. It’s not quite close enough, so you lean into it a little further, nurturing the fire just until you see the slightest caramel tinge overcome a section of the paper in Cloud’s careful grasp, and just like that it’s out. Within the slightly burnt area, a string of characters have been revealed in a darker brown, and you grin in hard-fought victory, snatching the paper back from Cloud, who was strangely unbothered by the not insignificant possibility of third degree burns on his surprisingly dainty fingers.

“Invisible fucking ink,” you groan, though the victory smile remains plastered on your cheeks as you stare down at that godforsaken ‘Right 97.’ “I can’t believe it took this long to figure it out.”

“Good thinking!” Tifa praises, raising her hand in a familiar manner, and you accept the invitation to smack it.

Cloud just sort of looks at you like he can’t wait for you to finally open the damn thing so you can all get the hell out of here, and luckily, he doesn’t have to  _ not  _ ask you twice. You bolt across the hall and drop eagerly to the floor in front of the safe, inputting the four numbers with seasoned efficiency, and…

You aren’t even sure what the hell just happened, but when you open your eyes from the floor on the other side of the room and realize that there was significantly more than just a childish scavenger hunt for clues guarding the contents of the safe, it occurs to you that Cloud was probably right. If you aren’t in for a million gil or a weapon of mass destruction, this is definitely far more trouble than it’s worth.

“Oh, for  _ fuck’s--” _

Your insightful comment is interrupted as Cloud unceremoniously grabs you by the bicep and manhandles you to your feet with that raw physical strength that never ceases to alarm you, and you take a proper look at the great, big, ugly beast you unwittingly unleashed. Luckily, you’ve got quite a lot of frustrations to work out at the moment, and you’re fairly certain that sentiment is not yours alone.

The battle is strenuous, but certainly not insurmountable. You get off with what feels like a sprained shoulder, though you suspect that’s from the heavy fall that incited the fight rather than anything that occurred in the duration. You test it’s mobility with a few rolls as you pace heavily back to the now attainable safe, crouching down and peering inside to find… a key.

Just a key.

You hold it up, slightly dumbfounded. It’s a very normal, very unremarkable key. A little big for a chest, you’d say it probably opens a door, and a rather archaic one by the looks of it. You almost want to laugh. Cloud, catching sight of it, clicks his tongue. 

“It must open something in here,” Tifa says, trying to remain positive. “The real treasure must be there.” 

One of the lines from the note comes to mind.  _ I scientifically altered him and put him to sleep in the basement.  _ You sigh very deeply. To be honest, you were hoping to avoid the ‘him,’ whoever he may be, but maybe you should’ve known that you’d end up with something like this. After all, nothing other than that ‘he’ was promised--you were only seduced by your own wishful thinking.

“It goes downstairs,” you state, resigned. “All the way downstairs.”

A difficult expression washes over Cloud’s face.

You’ve all avoided that ominous, musty passage leading down to the depths of the manor the entire time you’ve been here. Based on what you recall from Cloud’s story, you assume that must be where Sephiroth holed out for days on end, obsessively reading through the records of Shinra’s research and experiments until the day he...changed. Down there must’ve been the last place Cloud saw him as anything resembling his old self. You wouldn’t want to go down there either, if you were him.

“...Why don’t we come back tomorrow?” you offer, reigniting Tifa’s previous suggestion. 

“I think that would be for the best,” Tifa sighs. She seems more tired than usual, and now that your mystery has been solved, you feel bad for keeping her here so long--keeping both of them. Though, in a way, it might be better here than outside, dwelling over the terrifyingly unwelcoming replica of their childhood hometown.

Cloud nods firmly, and with that, you pocket the key and all three of you take your leave.

It’s not a very pleasant night at the inn. Of everyone in your two bedroom room, Aerith seems to be the only one who could manage to get a decent night’s sleep. Tifa beside her seems to be trying her best, but you catch her moving in the corner of your eye a little bit too often for you to believe she’s succeeding. You have no idea how the rest of the team is faring in the other room, but they’d be hard pressed to surpass the pitiful sleeplessness on this side of the wall.

Cloud doesn’t even pretend to be able to relax, even though you’re sure his body is screaming at him to do so. It’d probably be pretty awkward for both of you, laying wide awake, shoulder to shoulder in the dark, if not for the fact that this is perhaps the fourth time you’ve repeated this exact ritual with him. Frustratingly, sleep doesn’t seem too eager to sweep either of you away these nights. You’ll probably catch a couple hours at some point, but your mind is still alert for the time being, oddly preoccupied with the prior day’s safe issue. You idly turn the mundane fruits of your labor over in your fingers again and again as you think it over, both endlessly curious about who in the world would think up such a strange puzzle and leave it for any odd trespasser to solve, and half-dreading the inevitable journey into the bowels of that awful manor tomorrow.

When you slip the key back into your pocket and turn on your side, finally ready to try your hand at slumber, you see Cloud’s expression hard and woefully alert, staring plainly at the ceiling with little discernible from his moonlit profile. You’ll be surprised if he manages more than an hour tonight.

\-----

Aerith, Barret, and Nanaki all elect to join your reluctant journey to the bowels of Shinra Manor, presumably for “just in case” reasons after your summary of the previous day’s difficulties. You certainly aren’t going to argue with that.

To be quite honest, this is probably a bad idea. 

The few hours of sleep you managed last night seem to have reset your common sense just a little bit. Anything locked away so tightly that even the key itself is sealed behind layers of intellectual and physical rigor is probably best kept that way, and for all you know, you could be on your way to unleash an evil so terrible it could make Sephiroth himself run crying to his mother. Though, you seriously doubt it.

Of course, you still fully intend to open it.

You expected the trek down the creaky wooden steps to be slow, careful, and above all, reluctant, but as soon as you reenter the manor, Cloud becomes a man on a mission, leading the trek with a determined air about him, and pitiful bags under his eyes. 

The manor’s dungeon--and it can only be called a dungeon--is cold, damp, and severely unwelcoming, with an unidentifiable and off-puttingly pervasive smell to boot. Though Cloud leads the way firmly, knowing exactly where it is he’s going, you find yourself pulling up the rear of the group, a little more focused on figuring out what this key of yours goes to than witnessing the site of one of Cloud’s awful memories. Aerith dawdles just a little bit as well, keeping an observant eye on your idle and distracted trailing of the group--that is, until a cry can be heard from further down the dank corridor. 

It’s Cloud--crying out the absolute last name you’d like to hear him exclaim suddenly in rageful disbelief.

A horrible shiver runs down your spine, and you’re about to catch up as quickly as you can, when your eyes catch onto a door. It’s pretty dark down here so you didn’t notice it immediately, but there is definitely a door in the side of the passageway, and your hand freezes in your pocket, still idly toying with the key. Is this what it goes to? Your heart beats a little faster in your chest, though you can’t tell if it’s from excitement or anxiety. 

But, more pressingly, you hear voices down the hall, and one of them is disturbingly unfamiliar to you. Tearing yourself from the discovery, you rush to join your friends, and your hasty, late appearance awards you with a terrifying momentary eternity locked under a sickly green, catlike gaze. 

You aren’t very important, though. Sephiroth sees little reason to waste more than a second of his time regarding you directly. 

You’re shocked silent, as is the rest of the group sans Cloud. Is it really...him? Is he truly here? Was he here yesterday as well? Are you going to die? The actual words spoken between the two hated rivals hardly process in your mind, and it hits you now for the first time how terribly in over your head you are. What the hell can  _ you  _ do? You’re a thief. You’ve got little more than practiced sleight of hand and a hearty collection of stolen materia to your name. In what world could you ever hope to threaten someone like _ Sephiroth?  _

You don’t fall out of your awful reverie until he leaves, sweeping past your group like a spectre, disappearing into thin air as if he was never there in the first place. The sight of it nearly makes you shriek--your were certain for a moment he was about to end your existence. It takes minutes for your beating heart to soften, your anxious breaths struggling to fall back in line, and you feel something brush against your leg, nearly making you jump out of your skin before you realize it’s just Nanaki, having noticed your reaction. You just nod, the most you can do to signal that you’re alright. Now, you… well, you just feel pathetic.

There’s not much else to see down here. You all take your leave rather quickly. 

Apparently having forgotten about your key, the group wanders solemnly back towards the staircase, clearly shaken from the previous encounter, and once again, you hesitate behind, stopping in front of the door from earlier with the key firmly in your grasp.

“I’m pretty sure it goes here,” you announce blankly, catching everyone’s attention. They’d nearly left you behind this time. 

No one says anything for a moment, and then Tifa speaks up.

“...I’m not sure it’s a good idea to open that,” she warns, but, no, you feel like enough of a coward as is, and you worked hard to find this thing--your sore shoulder reminds you of that even as you raise the key from your pocket--so there’s no way in hell you’re leaving this place without your prize. Even if that ‘prize’ ends up spraining your other shoulder. You’re still hoping for a pile of gil, though.

You jab the key into the hole, finding a perfect fit, and open the door swiftly without thinking about it much. As you enter alone, you hear slightly rushed footsteps, a call of “hey!” somewhere down the hall as the concern of you potentially walking dumbly into a horrible trap occurs to the others, but you aren’t especially impressed with what you’ve found.

Another musty, cold, and damp room--this one strewn with human bones and the almost too fitting sight of black coffins on the floor. Two of them are open, with visibly skeletal remains sitting inside, but the one in the center of the room is closed. You know the contents are likely the same, but you’ve got a pretty severe urge to take the lid off and make sure.

You’ve just begun to reach towards it when the others catch up with you.

“Hey, be careful with that!” Barret shouts from behind you. “You got no idea what the hell might be in there!”

“He’s right,” Aerith adds, though she seems decidedly more curious than concerned.

“I’ll probably have an idea once I open it,” you insist stubbornly, reaching down again, but then you feel a hand on your shoulder, and looking back, it’s Cloud. You sigh. He deposits himself right next to you, presumably to prevent another situation like the safe ordeal from yesterday should something pop out at you, and you resist the urge to roll your eyes as you’re finally allowed to focus on the task at hand, reaching towards the lid for the third time.

Just in time for the coffin to start talking.

The entire room freezes as a muffled voice emanates from before you--something about a “nightmare” is all you could discern--and Cloud visibly stiffens beside you.

Then, without a second to react, the lid shoots off of the coffin on its own, landing on top of one of the other, uncovered coffins with a loud thump. 

“Who is it…?” mutters the shock of red and black inside of the coffin, voice much clearer now, and all you can do is stare with wide eyes. You’re standing a couple feet farther back than you remembered being, and your brain is a little slow to realize that Cloud must have yanked you back again, because he’s standing a little bit in front of you. 

You’re reminded again of how terribly on edge he must be--doubly so after what you all just witnessed a few minutes prior. His sword is drawn and there’s a fire in his eyes, as though he’s ready to strike the second he perceives this entity as a threat.

The man in the coffin--who, you realize, must be the aforementioned ‘he’--very slowly sits up, staring blankly between you all with apparent disinterest. Even Cloud’s clear display of aggression provokes little to no reaction from him. When those sharp red eyes land on your own, something compels you to sigh. This person may have just startled the hell out of you, but his gaze seems... human. A little unnerving, but so unlike the fresh memory of terror inflicted on you from Sephiroth’s icy and foreign glance in comparison. 

“...I don’t know any of you,” he declares after a moment, his voice a steady monotone. It felt longer than a moment. “You must leave.”

There’s a moment of stillness--uncertainty--but you’re quick to break it, even as your heart starts pounding again. You glance at Cloud once, then once more, and click your tongue at him, insistently pushing the blunt side of his sword down from the battle stance he held it in, and he looks at you with incredulity. You return your gaze to the coffin man, stepping just a little bit forward.

“You--” His eyes land on you the moment you begin speaking, and you inadvertantly cut yourself off. “...Were you having a nightmare?”

You didn’t hear the first thing he said very well, so you took a guess. 

The question seems to give him pause. 

“...A nightmare,” he repeats, as though he’s unfamiliar with the concept. “My slumber is a sentence of atonement.”

“The hell does that mean?” Cloud pipes up behind you, and you give him a sharp look, wishing he would just put the damn sword away. As sketchy as this whole ordeal seems, you can’t sense an ounce of malicious intent from this man’s disinterested stare, but Cloud seems prepared to try and chop his head off if he doesn’t like his tone.

Apparently unconcerned with your mutual quibbling, the man glances blankly between you.

“I have nothing to say to strangers,” he says. “Leave this place. This mansion holds nothing but nightmares.”

“Well, that’s for damn sure!” agrees Barret, who you only then realize has been uncharacteristically quiet throughout this strange encounter. Sephiroth must’ve spooked him pretty severely too.

The man’s eyes narrow, ever so slightly. “What do you know of this place?”

“Sephiroth lost his mind here five years ago,” Cloud informs him severely. “The books in this basement drove him mad.”

The man’s face tenses.  _ “Sephiroth?” _

“You know Sephiroth?” he and Cloud echo at each other. Your eyebrows shoot upwards.

Evidently more interested now in the strangers who have disturbed his slumber, the man jumps up in a flurry of red cloth, suddenly standing at the head of his resting place.

“You speak first,” he announces simply. Something about him is just… bizarre. You can’t tear your eyes away.

You glance back at Cloud, seeing that he is still clutching onto that damn sword, though it remains pointing downwards as you previously positioned it.

“Will you put that thing away?” you mutter insistently. Cloud glances between you and the man a couple times before reluctantly returning the sword to his back, which you find kind of irritating, because it’s not as if he couldn’t just grab it again in less time than most people could react to. 

When you look back to the man, his eyes are on you. They return to Cloud as he speaks up again. 

He summarizes the story of Sephiroth thus far, and the man listens intently, showing no discernable emotional reaction to any of the information he receives. At the end, he looks downwards.

“So Sephiroth knows of how he was created?” he asks, though seemingly rhetorically. “About… the Jenova Project... He has taken many lives… and searches for the Promised Land...”

It seems as though he’s talking to himself, processing it all. He  _ did  _ just wake up.

“Your turn to talk,” Cloud insists, crossing his arms over his chest.

The man looks away, staring very intently at nothing. “...I am sorry. I cannot speak.” 

“Ah, that’s disappointing,” Tifa sighs somewhere behind you, and you’re reminded once again of how many people are in the room. Every time you catch his gaze, it starts to feel like it’s just the two of you.

“Hearing your story has given me yet more cause to atone,” he drones, and it makes you frown. 

You want to ask him something, maybe convince him to speak about something more simple, such as why in the world he got locked in this room in the first place, or how long he’s been down here, but suddenly, he returns to the interior of the coffin.

“Now, please… leave me,” he insists. Inexplicably, the lid flies back on its own, sealing him in as if he’d never been discovered in the first place. You blink in shock. 

“It seems as though we should do what he asks,” Nanaki proposes, and, sure, he’s probably right. This guy doesn’t seem like anyone particularly eager to aid you on your noble endeavor.

...But, damnit, you worked two whole hours to find this guy and he doesn’t even seem to have any cash on him, so you’re sure as hell not gonna be satisfied with a mere three minute conversation as a consolation prize. As far as you’re concerned, this guy owes you--at least a  _ little  _ bit more of his time, maybe a thank you for freeing him--and you don’t even know his name!

While the rest of the group seems somewhat content to let this man be and move on with the journey, due undoubtedly in no small part to the collective desire to get the hell out of this mansion, you’re determined to get at least one more word out of him. 

So, you take a couple steps forward and stand up very straight, so as to convince yourself that you aren’t nervous about this in the slightest. Then, you lean down and you knock confidently on the coffin lid. 

When it flies off the second time, you only jump a little bit.

“...You’re still here,” he notes blandly, staring up at you. And man, does this guy wield a heavy stare.

You clear your throat. “Can you at least tell us your name? We worked pretty hard to find you down here, you know.”

He stares at you imperceptibly, then sits up once more, looking thoughtfully at nothing in particular.

“I… was with the Shinra Manufacturing Department in Administrative Research, also known as the Turks,” he says, as if just now conjuring the memory himself.

“The Turks?!” Tifa exclaims. That was written on the note too, you recall.

“Formerly,” he corrects. “I no longer have any affiliation with Shinra.”

He’s quiet for a moment, and you frown somewhat, seeing as he still has not answered your question. When his eyes snap back up to you, you suck in a quick breath unintentionally.

“Vincent,” he grants, then pauses, only long enough for you to repeat the name in your head once or twice. “And you are...?” 

It surprises you a little--you can’t tell if he’s addressing you specifically or the group as a whole, but in your hesitation, Cloud makes the decision for you. 

“Cloud,” he announces. “Formerly SOLDIER.” 

“You were also with Shinra?” Vincent asks, and that seems to have suddenly piqued his interest, eyes locking onto him. “Then, do you know Lucrecia?”

_ “Who?”  _

That kills what little animation Vincent was able to muster. “...Lucrecia,” he repeats. “The woman who gave birth to Sephiroth.” 

You can feel the ripple of shock pass through all of you.

“I thought Jenova was Sephiroth’s mother,” Cloud insists.

“That isn’t entirely wrong,” Vincent asserts. “But Sephiroth was born from...a beautiful woman. Lucrecia. She was an assistant to Professor Gast of the Jenova Project. ...She was...beautiful...”

For a moment, he looks as though he’s caught in a trance, memories presumably stealing his focus, though it doesn’t appear to be especially pleasant for him.

“...A human experiment?” Cloud infers, tearing Vincent from his reverie. 

“...I couldn’t…” Vincent’s voice remains monotone, but there’s just a hint of internal turmoil visible on his face. “The experiment could not be cancelled. I couldn’t… stop her. That is my sin. I allowed the one that I loved… the one I held in highest regard… to face such agony.”

“And your punishment for that is to sleep?” Tifa questions. “That’s weird.”

The bluntness almost makes you cringe, but she does have a point. It  _ is  _ weird, and if that’s the case, couldn’t he have at least slept in an actual bed?

Either her words bothered him or he was simply finished talking, but regardless, he once again sinks into the coffin, the lid swiftly sealing him away once more. You sigh.

You look back at Tifa, and she’s wearing an expression that reads as, “oops!” Aerith stifles a giggle, and pokes her in the side.

Now, you really are gonna have to leave, or so it seems. But even as you step reluctantly away from the coffin, it just doesn’t feel right leaving him down here all alone. After presumably years of being locked down here, and he doesn’t even feel a sliver of relief at being freed? How long does he intend to stay here? You try one more time.

“...Um, Vincent…?”

“Let me sleep,” comes his muffled reply a moment later, and you chew on your lip in indecision. 

You don’t want to bother him, but is that really a priority when there’s a man who intends to sleep his life away for who knows how long in a musty old basement full of human remains? That’s no way to live, and judging by that letter from yesterday, he hasn’t been down here by choice. This was done to him, and he’s merely resigned himself to it for whatever reason. Atonement, apparently. You don’t know exactly what all he thinks he is atoning for, but whatever it was, it doesn’t seem to be as terrible of a sin as he makes it out to be.

“...Let’s go,” says Aerith gently, brushing her hand against your arm, and you look back to see everyone else making their way out of the room. 

You just nod, following her. Well… at least you got his name. At least the door’s unlocked now if he ever does want to leave. You hate to come off as the sentimental type, but that good deed alone should be worth the effort, right? Though, you’d be lying if you said you didn’t feel pangs of yearning for the nonexistent secret stash of gil you had cooked up in your mind when you first found that bizarre note. 

Once you’re about halfway back towards the staircase, a sudden whoosh of air tickles the back of your neck, and you know full well there’s no reason for it to be drafty down here. You only manage to turn back halfway before you’re startled into another harsh gasp of air.

“Wait,” Vincent implores, and you can only stare at him with slightly widened eyes, wondering how he managed to get just a couple steps away from you without making so much as a sound, and wondering how you didn’t realize he was pretty damn tall as well. He’s looking past you, probably at Cloud down the hall, since he did most of the talking before. “If I go with you, will I encounter Hojo?”

“...I dunno,” Cloud calls back unhelpfully. “But we’re after both him and Sephiroth, so it should happen sooner or later.”

He ponders that for a very still moment, then seemingly nods to himself. “Alright. I would like to join you.”

_ “What?”  _ Tifa exclaims. “You’re coming with us?”

“...I may be of help to you, as a former Turk,” Vincent insists.

Well, that was a pretty sudden change of heart. You don’t know how any of them react behind you to this abrupt offer. To be quite honest, you can’t take your eyes off of him to turn back around and find out--for some reason, the idea of him joining you all provokes a strange sensation of excitement deep in your stomach, maybe a bit of selfish pride to find out that the ‘prize’ you fought to uncover turned out to be quite relevant to your current goals (despite, unfortunately, lacking a mountain of gil), or maybe just simple glee that such an apparently interesting new character will make the ensuing journey all the more colorful. You try not to think of him as a mystery to be solved, but there’s no denying your thoughts have ventured in that direction as well, and you’ve always been a slave to your curiosity--hell, that’s exactly why you found him in the first place. 

After a few moments, Cloud seems to accept his wish, offering a quiet and cautious affirmative. A little surprising, coming from the guy who looked about ready to chop his head off a few minutes ago, but you’re plenty used to Cloud’s peculiarities by now.

Once he receives his permission, Vincent’s stare finally drops down to you in front of him. It’s not quite curious, but… Well, it’s not quite anything.  _ Suffocating _ , that’s what it is. But...not entirely in a bad way.

“Well, then, welcome to the team,” you greet him with as much tired enthusiasm as you can summon. He doesn’t even blink. You think he might nod minisculely, but it’s such a subtle gesture that you aren’t sure it wasn’t just your mind playing a trick on you.

_ O- _ kay… Clearing your throat, you force yourself to turn around and keep walking. Part of you expects him to come up beside you--there’s plenty of room in the wide corridor--but he never does, always remaining just far enough behind you to stay out of your peripheral vision. It makes you anxious, but not in the way that it probably should.

Weirdly, above all else, you’re compelled to wonder how this is going to affect the sleeping arrangements from now on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope cloud doesnt seem, like, mean. i picture him as really #GoingThruIt at this point in the story so i had him act accordingly, and i also always thought it was kind of funny how they don't seem to distrust vincent in the slightest upon meeting him. like just 0 wariness or suspicion for some goth weirdo they found locked in a shinra mansion basement. so i remedied that a little bit.
> 
> also, if i end up dropping a sephiroth fic too at some point relatively soon... dont @ me!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apparently, a friend is made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just to get this out of the way upfront, i dont really intend to follow the actual canonical series of events too closely, partially because so much happens that i couldn't remember the exact order everything occurs in for a million dollars, and partially just cause.... it doesn't matter too much. i assume if you're reading this you know the story, i'm just here to make up some moments with vincent between the actual important plot events <3

Vincent examines the halls of the manor curiously as you retreat from its sinister walls, and you can’t help but wonder what exactly it looked like the last time he breached its underbelly.

Of course, you don’t get to witness much of his reaction, what with him stubbornly keeping short of your pace, even as you slow it down just a little to try and keep a better casual eye on him. Your subtle, curious glances over the shoulder can only reveal so much. Eventually, you give up entirely, and by the time you all emerge back into the sunlight, you wouldn’t even know for sure if he was still there. It’s probably best not to dwell too much on the fact that you can’t hear even the slightest indication of his footsteps.

There’s nothing left for any of you in Nibelheim, and you’re all pretty relieved to be getting out of here--some more than others, certainly. You decide to head south, and hope you encounter another village with some beds to sleep in before it gets dark. Either way, you’ve probably got a pretty damn long walk ahead of you.

And it’s a quiet walk. Cloud’s not the talkative type--doubly so after this impromptu visit “home.” Tifa, as per usual, tries to keep positive, but it’s clearly affecting her mood as well. Barret’s been off ever since that whole ordeal in Corel, and Nanaki never has too much to say as is. Aerith’s efforts to lighten the mood clearly aren’t working out as well as they usually do--her desperate attempts to get Tifa and Barret to swing arms with her as they walk falling tragically flat. 

You’re still bringing up the rear, and Vincent is still trailing at some unknown distance behind you. 

If you were feeling merciful, you could break out into a little jog to catch up with Aerith and give her some willing attention so she doesn’t feel too discouraged by the… well, discouraging air around her. 

...But, man, you’re dying to talk to the enigma lurking behind you again. Aerith will survive in the meantime.

You temper your steps just a little, thinking that maybe, if he’s closer than he seems, he’ll have no choice but to catch up with you naturally, but you can’t see him out of the corner of your eye, and you don’t want to fall so far behind that it becomes suspicious. Instead, you clear your throat, and deliberately look behind you, catching his distant eye in a way that should signal you have something to say to him. He stares back at you, but doesn’t do anything to remedy the distance between you.

“I, uh, wanted to apologize,” you open casually, slowing your pace to match his, even if it puts you at an awkward distance from the rest of the group to do so. If he won’t meet you halfway, you’ll just have to jump the gap on your own, you suppose.

“For what?”

“For being impolite,” you say, chuckling a little, trying to ignore the heavy mood he projects. “I demanded your name earlier, but I didn’t tell you mine.” So, you introduce yourself.

“...Were you involved with Shinra as well?” he asks after a moment.

Ah. Right. He’s still in want of information about that woman he mentioned.

You shake your head sympathetically, though slightly disappointed that you have nothing to offer on what might be the sole topic he’s willing to speak about. “Not unless swindling their brainless footsoldiers at every opportunity counts as involvement, no.”

“I see,” he notes, betraying no disappointment, but you could surmise that it’s in there somewhere.

You wonder briefly what this ‘Lucrecia’ is to him--or was, perhaps. By the way he spoke of her before, you’d guess something along the lines of a girlfriend, but if that’s the case, where has she been while he’s been asleep? Maybe they had a nasty breakup, or it was more of a one-sided ordeal. Admittedly, the image of the stoic and dreary man beside you pining for  _ anyone  _ is a rather difficult one to wrap your head around, let alone for the woman who apparently gave birth to Sephiroth. 

...Wait a minute. That couldn’t mean… 

Vincent isn’t...the  _ father,  _ is he?

Okay, wow,  _ no, _ let’s stop this theory train before it runs off the tracks. You shake your head a little to clear the overly imaginative fog muddling your brain before it starts to show on your face and bring yourself back down to reality. No sense in daydreaming about who the guy may or may not be when he’s standing right the hell next to you. 

The conversation’s probably over, you deduce. He’s clearly not the conversational type, so you doubt he’d want to continue it on past that. You can accept that, of course--or, you can do your best to prod just a few more words from him now that he's given you an opportunity. 

“So, uh…” What to ask, what to ask? It’s probably a little soon to delve into what might be a sore subject, so the more innocuous the better--though, you have a hard time imagining him getting angry over something you’ve said. It’d be impossible not to ask  _ one  _ thing, at least. “...How long were you down there?”

He blinks a couple times. You brace yourself just slightly for the possibility of backlash, but he doesn’t react to the question much either way.

“....What year is it?” he asks.

You swallow, then answer him. He just nods.

“More than two decades, I would guess.”

You clench your teeth to stop your jaw from falling open. Two goddamn _ decades?!  _ It’s impossible not to face the elephant in the room at that admission--no one who could survive indefinitely merely sleeping in a coffin with no food or water could possibly be human, right? If he was pumped up on mako, maybe, but this guy was just asleep in a dusty old basement. You’d be willing to bet he hasn’t aged much, either, given how young he looks. 

...The vampiric parallels are way too obvious to go over your head, but  _ that  _ seems like a risky question for another day. He hasn’t burned to ashes in the sunlight, at the very least.

“It, uh. It must have been lonely,” comes your eventual attempt at sympathy. You really have no clue what else to say to something like that.

“...I was asleep,” he states simply. That’s not really a no, though.

You decide to let him alone after that.

\-----

Eventually, you make your way to another village, about as quaint as Nibelheim, but lacking the evil mansion and ominous mountains lurking in the distance. On that alone, it’s a pretty big upgrade. 

You split up to look around as you often do, but within moments of branching off from the group, you see a flurry of pink headed your way out of the corner of your eye.

“Looks like someone’s made a friend,” Aerith teases in a very low voice, skipping over to your side and hooking an arm under yours. She tugs you along at her pace, clearly pursuing distance from the others above any of the little town’s sights in particular.

“A friend?” you repeat.

_ “Mhm,”  _ she hums. “You were quite chatty with Vincent earlier. I can’t imagine what you and him had to talk about.” 

You snort. “I was just trying to get a read on him,” you explain. “He doesn’t seem like a threat or anything, but, you know, considering where we found him and what he knows about Sephiroth, we’re probably better off being safe than sorry. It’d be weird to let him come along and then ignore him completely.” 

“Uh-huh,” she agrees blankly, nodding her head in a very sarcastically pensive way. “You’re totally right, that’s smart. Best to be careful. …Plus, well, you worked so  _ hard  _ to get him out of there, it’s only natural you’d be curious about him.” 

You nod hesitantly, eyeing her and very much not liking the direction her tone is headed. “...Yeah.”

Her lips betray her with the beginnings of a smirk. “...And, I mean, cobwebs and basement dust aside, there’s no denying he’s an attractive guy...”

You blink. “Aerith.”

“Yes?” she sings, grin widening innocently.

“Just to be clear,” you begin, “this entire conversation has just been a pretext to make fun of me, right?”

“Mhm!” 

“Great,” you sigh. “Well, you did it. Can I go now?”

“Not until you tell me what your little conversation was about,” she insists, tightening her grip on your arm. “Plus, we’ve got shopping to do. I’m pretty hungry, too, and I know you didn’t have breakfast, so don’t even try to skip out on me.”

“Yeah, yeah, wouldn’t dream of it,” you relent, letting her pull you through the wooden doors of a candlelit shop.

It’s your own fault, though, you admit. You know better than anyone how futile it is to try and get anything past _ Aerith. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> at the rate i'm going, im gonna end up having to add a "minor aerith/reader" tag as well lmao


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aerith scores an empty bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sigh. i was trying to make the chapters shorter so i could achieve more of a drabble-collection-y length, but it seems like that's not going to work out too well. not that anyone other than myself finds that particularly concerning.

“We’ve got two rooms, four beds,” Cloud announces as he returns from the innkeeper’s desk.

“Great,” says Tifa. “Same as last time, then?”

“Well, it can’t be  _ exactly  _ the same if we’ve got a new companion with us,” Aerith points out deliberately with a friendly glance at Vincent, and that look in her eyes is a little bit too sharp. Oh, you know that look well. She meets your gaze next, and--yeah, that settles it. You’re screwed.

Cloud furrows his brow. “There can still be a free bed for him if you, me, Tifa, and--”

“But Cloud, you promised _ I _ could have a free bed next time,” Aerith whines.

He furrows his brow even more. “No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did,” she insists. “I  _ never  _ get the free bed. Isn’t that right?”

She gives you a knowing look, and you sigh. You have a few precious seconds to decide whether or not you’re going to let yourself be nudged into helping her put you in an awkward situation for her own amusement. For the umpteenth time.

You see now why she always calls you a glutton for punishment.

“She  _ is  _ right,” you sigh, as though suddenly recalling such a truth for yourself.

“Is it that important?” Cloud asks, though Aerith’s unnervingly effective powers of persuasion are clearly softening him nonetheless. He nods in your direction. “I thought you said you wanted to share with--”

“Yeah, well, now I want to sleep alone,” she insists, scrunching her face at you playfully. “So, I guess  _ they’ll _ have to sleep in the other room.”

Her methods are heavily on the nose and uncharacteristically childish, but somehow, it seems like no one else (except maybe Tifa, who looks on with mild suspicion) is on quite the right wavelength to detect what she’s trying to do. You hope to god Vincent isn’t, at the very least--otherwise, it’ll probably be a very long, very awkward night.

“...Now, you know I couldn’t share a bed with any of y’all even if I wanted to,” Barret pipes up reasonably, visibly confused about Aerith’s sudden pickiness. 

“Ah, that’s true,” she hums, putting a finger to her chin in faux thought, but she shrugs nonchalantly a moment later. “Well, I’m sure Vincent doesn’t mind, do you, Vincent?”

There’s the kicker. Vincent didn’t seem particularly interested in the discussion, standing just a little bit further from the group than anyone else within it stands from each other, but he lifts his head to attention when his name is called, staring at Aerith rather… blankly, as always, while she beams back in response. After just a little  _ too  _ long of a pause, he shakes his head. 

Suddenly feeling a little bad about foisting Aerith’s questionably-motivated shenanigans on him, you clear your throat, and he glances in your direction.

“Well, if you’re not comfortable, though, it’s fine,” you insist. “I don’t really care either way, but I could just as easily force Aerith to suck it up and make room for me if you’d rather be alone.” Aerith sticks her tongue out at you, but she doesn’t seem too upset about you potentially thwarting her efforts.

Unfortunately for him, you’ve said something that cannot be responded to with a nonverbal gesture. 

Well,  _ mostly.  _ He shrugs, then mutters, “...I don’t mind.”

Even with this being the apparent plan all along, you’re a little surprised to hear him accept it so simply. You break eye contact with him pretty abruptly, cause if you don’t, you might start thinking something childish--like, that your friendliness has gotten him to like you most in the group so far, or something. He’s only been around a day. 

“That settles it!” Aerith exclaims, victorious, and in a sing-songy voice: “I get a bed all to myself!”

Cloud looks like he has no idea what the hell just happened, but he can’t wait to move on from it. When you look at Tifa, she’s already looking at you with that same little hint of suspicion. Oh, come on, it’s not like  _ you’re  _ the one who orchestrated this! All  _ you  _ did was pester the man out of his coffin.

After that, everyone sort of goes their separate ways, some heading up to their room, some heading back outside to be alone or take another look at the shops. You decide to go out and get some air for a few minutes before turning in for the night, definitely not just to agonize over whether or not you’ll actually go through with this. When the cold finally urges you to get back under a roof, having decided that you’ll decide for  _ real  _ once you’re standing in front of the door, you end up hesitating outside of one of the inn’s windows, catching two familiar voices floating out of the slim opening. 

“Hey, uh, Aerith…? You sure this is fine?”

“What do you mean?”

“...It just don’t seem right, makin’ them share a bed with that guy when we hardly know a thing about him,” Barret says in his idea of a conspiratorial whisper. “You sure you can’t just let ‘em sleep in there with you? Least till we really know we can trust him.”

“Oh, it’ll be fine,” Aerith assures him cheerfully. “They’re practically friends already. Didn’t you see them chatting it up on the way here? I think they really hit it off.”

You roll your eyes heavily, suppressing a sigh. If you didn’t love her so much, you’d probably hate her.

“No, I…” You can practically hear the bewildered confusion on his face. “Whuh, wait a second, for real? You said they hit it off already?” 

“Mhm,” she confirms, and, adding even more fuel to the fire, says: “He agreed to it pretty quickly, don’t you think? And he doesn’t seem like the type to want to share a bed with just  _ anyone.” _

“...Huh.” 

Barret’s bemused response paints a perfect picture of the unsure realization that Aerith has just subjected him to experiencing, and, at this point, you have half a mind to just ignore the plans from earlier and force your way into her bed regardless. It’s one thing to let her push you in his direction (and innocently lean into it as an excuse to feed your own curiosity), but if she’s gonna start planting implications about you so soon, you sure as hell don’t want to give her any more evidence to twist around and fit into her mischief. Tonight, it’s “don’t those two seem to get along pretty well?” and at this rate, you could very well wake up tomorrow morning to “don’t they seem more refreshed than usual after sleeping next to Vincent? I wonder why that is…”

Having heard enough, you decide to casually step back into the inn at that moment, not quite interrupting their conversation, but certainly cutting it close. Even if you hadn’t heard any of it, it would’ve been pretty obvious who they were talking about by the panicked look on Barret’s face at the sight of you, but Aerith only turns around and smiles at you in that oddly knowing way she does sometimes. Skipping over to you, she grabs your arm affectionately.

“I, uh, I’m ‘bout ready to turn in,” Barret announces, oddly (yet not unnaturally) loud, and starts scurrying off towards the stairs.

“Night,” you call after him, though you’ll apparently be seeing him again in a minute or so. Maybe.

“I’m pretty tired, too,” Aerith says, and you can’t tell if her yawn is genuine or not. “Let’s head up.”

With that, she starts half-dragging you towards the staircase as well, and you mostly let her, though you can’t help but wonder what the hell has gotten into her. She’s not usually this persistent about the little schemes she ropes you into, especially not about something she’s not even going to witness herself. If you weren’t already second guessing it before, you definitely would be now.

“Hey, Aerith,” you mutter. “You don’t mind if I just sleep with you anyway, right?”

She glances at you and then looks up as though thinking, but she doesn’t hesitate much in the task of hauling you up the stairs.

“Of course not,” she says, taking one hand off of your arm to wave dismissively. “This isn’t all that important, anyway.”

“Huh?”

She just gives you that weird look again. “Ah, nothing. Just thought it’d be a little funny. Maybe you’ll learn something about him.”

You hum a little suspiciously at her, but by then, she’s stopped you in front of one of the rooms. The one she’s sleeping in, presumably. Her hand reaches out and turns the doorknob, but you hesitate, glancing down the hall to another door. It seems to be the only other room on this floor, and it doesn’t seem like anyone else is staying at this inn, so you’d assume it’s where the rest of the group is. Where  _ he  _ is.

“Wow,” Aerith comments, noticing your hold up. “You actually want to go over there, don’t you?”

“Kinda,” you mutter. Actually, now that you’re here...it’s a little more than “kinda.”

“...Well, in that case, sweet dreams!” Before you can even look back at her, she’s slipped away from you and closed the door shut behind her, as if your unsure hesitation was an unbreakable conviction. You sigh.

Well, you did tell yourself you’d decide definitively once you were standing outside of the door, didn’t you?

You drag yourself half-reluctantly down the hall and take a breath. It’s not like it’s that big a deal or anything--you think that’s what Aerith was trying to tell you--but the thought of stepping into this room makes your stomach do an uneasy flip nonetheless.

It’s fine. It’s just one night, and it might be interesting to be that close to him, if only for a little bit. Plus, it’s not like you’re gonna be  _ alone  _ in the room. Shaking your head at your own frivolous hesitation, you put your hand on the doorknob. 

You’ll go in, make sure he’s still okay with it, and go the hell to sleep. That’ll be that.

Despite only having seen him a couple minutes beforehand, Barret already seems to be out cold when you open the door, snoring thunderously on his back. Nanaki is curled up silently on a rug in the corner, and Vincent is much the same as he was when you first saw him, laying rigid and flat on the bed closest to the door, his eyes closed and his body shifted considerably to one side of the bed. Expecting company.

Is he already asleep? You suppose if he really has spent the last two decades sleeping he must enjoy it somewhat (or at the very least, be good at it), and you didn’t see him again after the arrangements were made, so he might’ve just come right upstairs and gone to bed as soon as he was able. You can’t tell if that makes it more or less difficult for you, though. It’d be awkward to jump in bed beside him while he’s awake and fully aware of it, but somehow, it feels similarly strange to quietly slip in while he’s unconscious. 

_ Whatever.  _ It’s not a big deal.

Quietly and carefully, you step over to the other side of the bed, finding ample space to fit yourself without even having to touch him, but as you sit gently down at the edge, it sends a shiver down your spine to have your back to him. As quickly as you can manage without moving around too much, you take off your shoes and set your satchel down at your bedside, removing anything else that might be uncomfortable as well while convincing yourself that you are  _ not  _ stalling. When you finally turn and raise your legs to sit on the bed proper, Vincent, of course, hasn’t moved an inch. It barely even looks like he’s breathing.

He really must be asleep. You sigh in relief, but your objective of forcing yourself unconscious as fast as possible turns on its head abruptly enough to give you whiplash once you get a proper look at him beside you. 

The room is pretty dark, but if you lean yourself back against the headboard, enough moonlight filters past you to illuminate his face well enough. He looks especially pale and cadaverous like this, his slumbering expression a deathly calm and the dark circles under his eyes only deeper shadowed, but in spite of all the gothic malaise, you can’t deny the aspect of… Well…

_ And, I mean, basement dust aside, there’s no denying he’s an attractive guy… _

You cringe a little as Aerith’s words rise back to the forefront of your mind, but, hell, she certainly wasn’t _wrong,_ and it hits you suddenly that this is exactly why you’ve been so oddly apprehensive about the idea of laying yourself beside him. Right now is about the worst possible time for you to confront the fact and you damn well know it, but it’s a little hard to avoid in the face of this borderline ethereal moment you find yourself trapped in. Vincent has an oddly pretty face, somehow both soft and angular at once, with delicate lips that fall in a graceful downturn, contrasted in appearance somewhat by their sallow color. Long eyelashes curl vastly over his sunken under eyes, and his hair, deeply, impossibly dark in the dim lighting, swims over his pillow and frames his cheeks in a perfect disarray, jagged and unkempt to no detriment of its modest sheen. His visage is a profound contradiction, embodying both the macabre pallor of a corpse and a sort of fairytale beauty all at once, and the realization of that is so captivating that you no longer possess the self-awareness to be embarrassed by your shameless gawking. 

Until he opens his eyes.

You startle horribly as those deep red irises connect with your own, jumping back in utter mortification as you realize what you’ve been doing--that, in your enthrallment, you’d subconsciously leaned yourself closer to him, watching his frozen slumber from nearly straight above. With one hand covering part of your face in shock, the other resting above your racing heart, you struggle for a moment to regulate your breathing.

_ “Oh _ my-- Sorry, I--” you gasp, a cold sweat veiling your forehead, unable to face him even as he calmly sits up and looks at you. “I was just-- I don’t know what I was doing. Sorry.” 

He doesn’t say anything, so you give him a pitiful glance, and he’s just staring ambiguously like always.

“...Am I making you uncomfortable?” he asks bluntly after a moment, and the question makes your brain stutter.

“Wh--  _ No, _ of course not, you’re fine, I just--” You cut yourself off, sigh hopelessly. “I didn’t mean to wake you.” 

“You didn’t,” he states, and then swiftly turns and stands from the bed.

“Ah-- What are you doing?” you ask impulsively. A spark of dread runs through you at the idea that you might’ve freaked him out.

“Allowing you to get comfortable,” he replies over his shoulder. Near silent footsteps make a path towards the door. 

_ “No, _ I-- Really, Vincent, it's fine,” you insist almost frantically, flustered by the fact that he somehow believes  _ himself  _ to be the nuisance here. “You’re not bothering me at all. I was just...zoning out, I guess.” Definitely not a lie.

He stops at the door, turns halfway to look at you again. “I’ll be back.”

With that, he exits, the door closing behind him almost faster than you can process, and you blink in shock a couple times.

The shame only sinks in to its deepest extent once he’s gone, your hands rising to cover your burning face in regret. You can’t believe you loosened the reins enough to do something like that, enchantedly ogling him in the dark like some kind of creep. Not an ounce of you would be surprised if his sudden departure had a lot more to do with getting away from you than with relieving you from his presence for your supposed comfort.

Muffling a groan, you force yourself to lay down, turning your back to Vincent’s side of the bed and stuffing your face into your pillow. Between your pre-existing difficulties and the humiliation you just endured, you doubt sleep is going to come easy. If you weren’t so reluctant to accidentally run into him, you’d probably just go back outside and endure the elements until it whips a little bit of sense back into you, then probably squeeze in with Aerith instead as an apology so he can rest in peace. Hell, Cloud might even be out there already, given his own insomnia issue lately. He’d definitely be willing to streamline the sense-whipping process for you.

But you don’t know where the hell Vincent might be, and your cowardice is chaining you down to this bed. All you can do is snuggle into yourself and hope desperately to lose consciousness  _ before  _ he walks back through that door; cause if you don’t, and you’re forced to endure the weight of him lying next to you again, there’s no way you’re getting so much as a wink tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know its a little soon for that time-honored bed-sharing trope, but i thought doing it early enough that there are no romantic implications would be a good way to kick-start that aspect of the story, if that makes sense.
> 
> like, "why am i feeling so weird about something i can do easily with any other party member? ohhhhhh, its because he's hot. well, fuck. guess i'll have to deal with that from now on." 
> 
> also, not sure why, but i cannot physically stop myself from squeezing in as much aerith content as possible. vincent's vibrant, sparkling personality just cannot fill chapters on its own, i suppose.

**Author's Note:**

> if you enjoy this story, please consider leaving a comment to let me know! it's very encouraging to hear your positive feedback


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